The fight to safeguard Otago Southland health services is
on again 30 years after a public appeal in 1980 raised $1.4
million for a body scanner for Dunedin Hospital. Chatting
in August 1981 with the first patient, W. A. McCord, of
Ohai, Southland, are (from left) radiologist Clare Bootten,
Prof S. W. Heap and radiologist Kay Shanks. Photo from ODT
files.
Tudor Caradoc-Davies believes background agendas,
particularly the desire for a full medical school in
Canterbury, are behind moves to base all South Island
neurosurgeons in Christchurch. In this letter to Health
Minister Tony Ryall, he explains why.
This letter is written to urge you to intervene in this issue
and apply rational common sense.
When I came to New Zealand in 1978, I became aware of
hostility to the Otago Medical School, and even asked
colleagues, many of whom were graduates of that
establishment, the reason.
They could not answer apart from "they are too small and too
big for their boots".
I became even more aware of this while climbing up the
professional ladder, and found this sentiment at College of
Physicians and Department of Health meetings.
Cat scanner
In 1980, I was registrar in neurology when the announcement
was made that Otago would not receive funding for a Cat
scanner, unlike Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch.
There was much alarm and dismay, and Dr Martin Pollock, head
of neurology, was of the opinion that this would fatally
damage the Medical School.
Urged on by colleagues, he embarked on a programme which
raised sufficient funds to buy, maintain, and later improve a
scanner. So much for the government of the day.
Dr Tony Hocken, physician, wrote a letter to the British
Medical Journal, which is as appropriate today as it was in
1980.
He gave an elegant exposition of the issue, under the
headings "Rivalry for facilities", "Setback to neurosurgery"
and "Educational implications".
His final summary lists three issues:"(1) Dunedin is
disadvantaged by a small population drainage area of 300,000
maximum.
To attract competent staff to maintain the standard of
teaching, a full complement of services and technology needs
to be maintained.
"(2) Christchurch is a vitally motivated business and
industrial centre driven by ambitious local personalities,
which drains a specialist area of 500,000.
"In Christchurch, there is a clinical medical school of the
University of Otago, which only recently supplemented the
service hospital.
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